Reviews: Hand Planes

Over the last 12 months, I’ve made a few Krenov style wooden hand planes and also collected and refurbished a number of old Stanley and Record planes. I now have a nice collection of number 3, 4,5,6, and 7 planes, all of them capable of cutting wispy shavings.
I am giving a presentation in the new year to the woodworking club I belong to on making wooden hand planes. I noticed a few weeks ago that Lee Valley/Veritas has introduced a Wooden Plane Hardware kit with s Norris style ...

I have this plane now for two years. I have the version with the ironwood sole. I really enjoy using this plane. It is one of the tools that I use the most. I mainly use it on pine, but also one beech, walnut and maple.This plane literary glides over the wood and takes no effort to plane. I also have a wooden jointer plane and a low angle jack plane but I rarely use them. This small plane however is much more comfortable to use. For big projects I of course use the jointer and for shooting en...

I just go this tool today. I love it. It’s a great hand tool. Pulled it out of the box and cleaned the blade and put a slight hook on the scraper and away I went. Very easy to control the amount of camber in the blade. Just a little bit and takes light wispy shavings that curl. Give it more camber and it takes a more aggressive cut. I keep an old cutting board around just for trying tools out on and see how they do. This is an end grain cutting board so it’s pretty tough. This cab...

Just retired and I build guitars and ukuleles amongst other stuff. I love tools and the better the tool, the better and happier I work. I have had a pair of Record spoke shaves for 40 years and they chatter. The blades are thin, the mouths are big. I have fettled them and they work…quite well. I have noticed these Quangsheng shaves for a few months. I have some of their planes and they are excellent, as are their plane blades and back irons. They have really improved my collect...

This review is for the Lie Nielsen small bronze block plane. I’m pretty sure I got the low angle one.
This plane is great. The Stanley Sweetheart block plane I have was ok but this thing is leagues ahead of it. It’s a dinky little critter with a 1 1/4 inch blade. Mine is made of bronze, though iron ones are available.
The plane is perfectly made. The sides are perfectly square to the sole and the sole is flat as a pancake. The blade is nice and thick, especially for ...

Note: This review is an elaboration on my review at Amazon.com
I am pleased with this plane. After lapping and honing, it did a good job cutting both long grain and cross grain rabbets.
This is a shoulder plane (Iron goes all the way to the edge of the body) with a depth stop, fence, and side nicker (to cut across the end grain when planing across the grain). It also has 2 frogs to mount the iron, one normal near the center of the sole, and a second near the front of the plane for u...

Let me start off by saying this is the best plane I’ve ever used. I can run it any direction with or against the grain and leave a mirror-smooth surface, taking translucent shavings. The reason I docked a star is Lie-Nielsen’s quality control isn’t very good. When I first received the plane (ordered brand new off their website), there were several problems:
- The chipbreaker’s leading edge didn’t contact the blade, it was ground wrong. This means small sha...

This range of planes is currently being sold in the UK by Rutlands and Workshop Heaven.
It is the understated half brother of the acclaimed Wood River planes sold on the other side of the Atlantic. Made, as I understand it in the same factory, but tweaked to different specifications according to the badge that’s put on it, and the shop that sells it.
The heart of this plane is the pre-tensioned steel body. A happy evolution of the old cast iron plane bodies of yore, the steel one ...

THE SOURCEI bought this scraper plane from a German mail order company Dictum. Probably not the best source if you don’t live in Europe. The good news is that they sell some of their products in the States and maybe Canada too.
I can’t buy tools like this in a store where I live, so I have to buy mail order. I have learned to trust the German tools as they have never disappointed me yet. This scraper plane is no exception. This tool is in the ‘good value’ category...

I’ve been wanting to upgrade the blade in this plane since I restored it a while back. The iron is almost gone and pitted badly and the cap iron is mainly what has prevented this plane from being used in my shop as it chatters really bad. I’ve tried sharpening and flattening the blade, and re-shaping the cap iron but it’s warped so bad it will never work. I finally put out the cash for a blade I picked up from Woodcraft but they didn’t have a cap iron in 2-5/8” w...